Biohazardous medical waste contains potentially infectious materials which pose a health risk to the public and the environment. This garbage comprises surgical gloves, disposable culture flasks, waste items with blood contaminations, serological pipettes, needles, scalpels, and syringes. It even includes pathological litter like human organs, tissues, body parts, and animal carcasses that have been under recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid exposure. This type of waste generates from specialists’ diagnostic activities in hospitals, veterinary centers, clinics, and medical research laboratories. The work they conduct is essential to prevent and discover cures for the treatment of various lethal diseases.
How can improper biohazardous waste disposal be dangerous to humans?
The inadequate disposal of biohazardous medical waste can pose a potential health risk to the community. Patients, healthcare employees, and the public who come in contact with the waste are likely to suffer from serious illnesses. This is because the waste falling under the biohazardous category contains many kinds of pathogenic microorganisms. These pathogens, which take the form of viruses, bacteria, and protozoa, enter the bodies of these individuals via various routes. These include a cut in the skin, mucous membrane, inhalation through the nose, ingestion, and bodily fluid transfusion. The pathogens entering the bodies of their victims weaken the immune system to make them vulnerable to life-threatening diseases.
How can biohazardous medical waste disposal management companies help?
Many federal statutory agencies in America are taking stringent measures to significantly minimize the public health risks of biohazardous medical waste. Organizations like the OSHA, EPA, CDC, and FDA are issuing stringent biohazardous waste disposal guidelines to all healthcare centers. Unfortunately, these hospitals, clinics, and research laboratories do not have the monetary resources and in-house facilities to comply with these regulations. This is why the administrators of these healthcare centers are hiring the services of reliable biohazardous medical waste disposal management companies. The specialists of corporate service providers help the medical centers dispose of the biohazardous waste through two popular methods-
- Incineration
This technique involves burning the biohazardous waste to extremely high temperatures until it turns into hot white ash. Then, the experts take the necessary steps to transfer this ash to various landfills for disposal. This ensures that medical waste does not cause any environmental damage. However, before commencing this process, they first segregate pathological, chemotherapeutic, and non-hazardous pharmaceutical waste items.
- Autoclaving
Under this technique, the biohazardous medical waste is subject to a high-temperature and pressure steaming process. This helps to neutralize all kinds of highly infectious agents, pathogens, and microorganisms that are present in the waste. The specialists only take measures to send the debris to various landfills or waste-to-energy conversion facilities.
Working with a reliable biohazardous waste disposal management company is a viable way for healthcare centers to prevent the possible occurrence of epidemics. However, the service providers they choose to hire should have a good market reputation. The company should have trained and skilled staff when it comes to safe and effective ways of disposing of biohazardous waste in the correct manner.